BUSINESSMAN John Kinghorn has won his appeal against ICAC, becoming the first person since former Premier Nick Greiner to overturn a corrupt conduct finding.

But fellow magnates Travers Duncan and John McGuigan, as well as their company Cascade Coal, have failed in their attempt to overturn last year’s damning reports.

In July 2013 now-retired ICAC Commissioner David Ipp QC declared RAMS Home Loans founder Mr Kinghorn, Mr Duncan and fellow Cascade investors John McGuigan, Richard Poole and John Atkinson acted corruptly by intending to deceive NSW Government officials about the Obeid family’s involvement in the company.

Last year’s explosive inquiry — which also made corrupt findings against former Labor ministers Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid — heard Cascade Coal secured a coal exploration licence over Cherrydale Park, a farmed owned by the Obeid family.

Travers Duncan saw his appeal fail.Source:News Limited

The businessmen launched an immediate appeal in the Supreme Court against the findings.

Today, Justice Robert McDougall dismissed the claims of Duncan, McGuigan, Kinghorn and Cascade but determined Kinghorn’s case “was not made according to law and is a nullity”.

Justice McDougall found that the findings against Kinghorn could not support “the conclusion his conduct could involve a criminal offence”.

The group submitted that “information about the Obeid family’s involvement in the Mount Penny tenement (included in the exploration licence area) was already in the public arena”.

But the Supreme Court found “information said to have been concealed by the plaintiffs went beyond public knowledge at the time”.

The Commission has also been ordered to pay Mr Kinghorn’s legal costs for the Supreme Court case, which was held earlier this year.

Cascade Coal had its mining licence cancelled under new legislation, introduced by the O’Farrell government in the wake of explosive evidence to the Commission.

Last week, it launched a High Court challenge to have the findings overturned.